


Shouldn't Happen to a Dog

by Harukami



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-15
Updated: 2014-01-15
Packaged: 2018-01-08 19:39:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1136585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b><br/><i>Shouldn't happen to a dog</i></b><br/><b>Fig.</b> an expression of something that is so bad that no creature deserves it. <i>Poor guy. That shouldn't happen to a dog. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Shouldn't Happen to a Dog

.1.

"It's -- it's not my FAULT that I'm sexually more experienced than you!" Koujaku was protesting, loud, as Aoba drunkenly cornered him in the bed room, hitting him with a pillow over and over again. "What do you want me to say, I'm sorry that sex is so good?"

"MAYBE! If I were -- if I were four years older, if I could compact four years of experience into me you wouldn't -- smugly -- with that smug face -- smile down and say that kind of thing!"

"Aoba, even if you were four years older--"

"'Was it good for you', who asks that?? What do you want me to say! No? Yes?"

"Either would be fine!"

"Maybe I WILL get four more years experience! Maybe I will go out and get that -- cram four years into a week or something -- maybe I'll suck so many cocks that you'll be too busy crying for joy to ask stupid questions--"

"Excuse me, I haven't slept with anyone else since we're together and _I was asking because I hadn't sucked cock before actually so calm down, Aoba_!"

Beni hop-shuffled over to Ren and nudged him with a wing, giving him a sidelong glance. "Ah, love," he said, with a grin in his voice. "Cute, but I'm kinda glad we don't have to deal with it."

"Yes," Ren said, and then stopped. He tuned it out, the argument, even the sensation of Beni's repeated nudging, just to examine what he was feeling. It seemed like pain, but that made no sense. He ran a quick diagnostics to be sure that nothing was wearing down.

"Ren?"

"Sorry," Ren said to Beni, after a moment. "You're right, of course. They seem happy, however."

"Is this happiness?" Beni asked, sarcastically.

"It is," Ren said.

 

.2.

"Aoba."

"Ren?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt," Ren said, and he was; it was embarrassing, somehow, to see Aoba lean back from the kiss, one of Noiz's sharp, green eyes flicking in Ren's direction with an obvious mental shrug as he moved to kissing Aoba's neck instead.

Aoba gasped, cheeks darkening, eyelids fluttering half-closed. "Ren, shouldn't you -- be in sleep mode?"

"Yes, momentarily," Ren said. He had the strange urge to just -- hurry. Get through this and turn himself off and not have to think anything, feel anything. What a strange experience. "I thought you would want to know about Pseudorabbit's current mode."

"What...?"

"Yes. It is currently recording."

"Wh-- WHAT?" Aoba pushed Noiz away with two hands and a foot. "Noiz, you jerk! You didn't say anything about that!"

Noiz just shrugged, settling back on his hands. "Well, yeah," he said. "I was going to surprise you with it later."

"S-SURPRISE ME?"

"Could be interesting."

"Turn it off right now!"

Noiz clicked his tongue in irritation. "...Fine. Pseudorabbit, recording off."

"Yeeees," Pseudorabbit sighed.

"Better?" Noiz asked both Aoba and Ren, pointedly.

Ren shifted back on his haunches. "I have no objection to it myself. However, I was aware that Aoba would be uncomfortable being recorded without his permission."

"Uh, _yeah_ ," Aoba said. "Now I'm not even in the mood!"

"Yes you are," Noiz said, hand wandering.

"No I... nnghh... yes I am..."

"Heh."

Pseudorabbit spun, looking at Ren. "Tattletale, tattletale. Ren's a tattletale!"

"Yes," Ren said, and entered sleep mode.

 

.3.

"...What are you doing?"

"Mink!" Aoba looked up in surprise as Mink's shadow fell across them. "I was just trying to braid Ren's tail..."

"To braid it...?" Mink's brows furrowed as he glanced down at them. "You're making a mess of it."

Aoba huffed. "I noticed, but if you're going to criticize, the least you can do is help out."

"...Aoba. It's fine. I don't need it," Ren protested in a mild tone.

Mink had lifted a hand, but dropped it with a shrug. "He doesn't want it."

"Aw, come on, Ren. We'll be a matched set. You'll match with Huracan too."

Ren couldn't really express it, this feeling that was settling in his skin, this feeling of change from a way he had always been. "...It wouldn't go with my collar."

"Oh... yeah, I guess," Aoba said, slowly. "You're pretty attached to that."

"Of course. It was the style that Aoba initially presented me with."

Mink made a non-committal sound and continued on his way through the room, picking up the plate Aoba had set out before he'd started his poor attempt at braiding Ren. Aoba straightened. "Ah, hang on, we can eat together -- Ren, sorry, your fur's a mess."

"It's all right. It can wait."

"I'll fix it after, I promise," Aoba said, and went to grab the second plate.

There was a few moments of silence, and Huracan settled next to him with a flutter of broad wings. "Afraid of change?"

"No."

"Change comes to all things."

"Not to allmates."

"I suppose not," Huracan allowed. "Perhaps not."

 

.4.

It was strange, in a way, that in Clear he had found something like a friend. He hadn't been prepared for that -- Clear was rambunctious and childlike and often a bit haphazard, but as much as he was like a human, he was also like an allmate. Perhaps, Ren allowed, it shouldn't be surprising that he could bridge the gap between them.

Clear liked to go out with him as well, take him places and show him things and keep up a chatter. This was especially if Aoba and he were going out together to any public place; he went with them on dates to movies, to the park, for walks. If the date was in public, he was along and not excluded or kept in the bag for any reason, largely because Clear wanted to ask him about it, if they'd done things like this before Clear had come along, what it was like, what movies they'd seen before, how crowded was it then, did they eat popcorn? And so on.

It's a level of inclusion that largely keeps him from feeling like a third wheel, but it impacts him the harder when he's suddenly left out. Those times when Aoba and Clear slip out into the balcony and then vanish into the city. Ren understands why it happens, of course; with Clear living at home, there's little privacy for sexual escapades, and they are a very physically affectionate couple. A very _noisy_ couple Of course, they will want to slip away from everyone to go have particularly rowdy intercourse elsewhere now and again.

But the room feels the quieter for it; Ren sits out on the balcony and stares up at the railing too far away for him to reach and waits for them to return.

"Ah -- Ren? Were you waiting this whole time?"

"Aoba, welcome home."

"Ren-san! It's starting to drizzle, your fur's all wet! It's sticking out all over."

"Clear, welcome back."

They're the same when they return as when they go away, but it's frustrating regardless, a sense that somehow he's not enough; that if Clear is the bridge between their realities, himself a machine and Aoba a human, he is also a separator.

It's a strange, petty little thought -- he wouldn't do that with Aoba even if his body were programmed with it, and what an embarrassing thought _that_ was; this body was a dog's, after all. But there's a difference between 'wouldn't' and 'can't' that normally he doesn't feel, but sometimes, the two of them coming back like this, he feels anyway.

 

.5.

_Why?_

_You had such a silly fight._

_Yes, but--_

_These are very real possibilities._

_I know, but--_

_Well, I'm not someone to force you to enjoy it, but you already moved away from those paths, so you have to accept the path you're on._

Ren woke with a gasp and groped a hand out on the blankets to try to find Aoba, and didn't. The bed was empty. He lay there a moment in a panic, tried to run diagnostics before he remembered he couldn't, counted fingers and toes and rolled over to find Aoba curled up on the floor. 

"Aoba."

"What?" Aoba didn't sound like he slept at all, voice sulky and teary.

Ren immediately felt terrible. He'd put that tone in Aoba's voice. "...I'm sorry. I thought too hard and panicked."

It was one year since he and Aoba began their relationship -- no, since they resumed their relationship, using Sei's body as a vehicle. Most of the time, he was able to pretend to forget how strange it was. That night, he hadn't.

"I know. I know that."

"Come back to bed?"

For a moment, he didn't think Aoba would, but then Aoba just mumbled, tired and whiny, "Yeah," and kind of clawed his way back into bed.

Ren wrapped his arms around Aoba, buried his face in Aoba's neck, and said, "I love you. Whatever body this is."

"...Yeah. I love you, Ren."

"But it'll be strange sometimes."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."

They were quiet, and then Aoba kissed Ren, and Ren closed his eyes and thought about how improbable it was that this could have happened at all, and kissed back.


End file.
